Andy Pettitte’s elbow is back to 100 percent, his shoulder feels perfectly healthy and he planned to go about his offseason just like every other year. Then he got a call from Joe Girardi, who asked him to start throwing a little later than usual.

Instead of playing catch on January 1, Pettitte started January 16.

“They wanted me to do that and I told them I would do it,” Pettitte said. “You’re kind of not crazy about it because I’m kind of a creature of habit, but other than that, everything was just normal.”

As you might expect, this was all part of the Yankees plan to very slightly cut down on their starting pitchers’ workload this spring. Although his routine was slightly altered, Pettitte said he trusted Girardi and Dave Eiland when they told him the plan for a tweaked offseason. He threw 30 pitches this morning, becoming the last of the Yankees’ four confirmed starters to get into the bullpen.

“I threw a couple of times before I got down here,” Pettitte said. “It’s been a couple of weeks since I got on there, so it was good. It was good to get on there and get going. I felt good. Arm feels good. Same old story, just part of the process.”

Here’s the audio. Pettitte was on his way out the door to play golf, which explains the early jokes about a tee time.

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